“We liked wasting time, but almost nothing was more annoying than having our wasted time wasted on something not worth wasting it on.”

—Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End

(This is one of the uncommon novels speaking from the first person plural point of view—”us,” “our,” and “we”—like Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides. Whether this technique is annoying or enchanting I’ve yet to decide. James Wood writes in How Fiction Works: “I can tell a story in the third person or in the first person, and perhaps in the second person singular or in the first person plural, though successful examples of these latter two are rare indeed.”)